Graphene is a material with well-documented and advantageous properties including excellent electrical conductivity, tensile strength, and unique atomic arrangement in a two-dimensional (2D) plane, among others. Accordingly, graphene is a material of great interest and continues to be investigated in new, interesting and useful applications across a wide variety of technical fields including biology, chemistry, materials science, semiconductor applications, etc.
Some such applications require, or would greatly benefit from, employing graphene in 3D arrangements. However, accomplishing this feat while retaining the desired properties conveyed by graphene is difficult in part due to the unique 2D structure of graphene, which conveys or strongly contributes to the characteristics for which graphene is desired in the particular application.
One existing approach, employed by Chen, et al. “Three-dimensional flexible and conductive interconnected graphene networks grown by chemical vapour deposition,” Nat. Mat. 10, 424-428 (2011) to form a 3D graphene structure includes depositing graphene onto a nickel foam substrate, and etching away the nickel substrate to obtain a graphene foam. While Chen's structure is a 3D matrix comprising graphene, the structure is characterized by random or stochastic distribution of the graphene throughout the matrix (e.g. as opposed to an ordered structure), and accordingly suffers with respect to mechanical strength and electronic properties compared to expected properties for a corresponding structure of pure crystalline-phase graphene.
Accordingly, it would be highly beneficial to provide 3D graphene structures which exhibit controlled, deterministic architectures and retain graphene with desired high degree of crystallinity, as well as methods of making the same.